Mary Ellen Daniels
Mary Ellen Daniels was a contestant on Season 1 of Hell's Kitchen. She ranked in 8th place. Personality Mary Ellen arrived in Hell's Kitchen as the sweet and innocent girl with a dream. She was shown to be very quiet and nice to her teammates, even developed a friendship with her teammate Jessica. However, in the kitchen, she was very inconsistent, giving mixed performances, and had a running feud with teammate Andrew. Season 1 Episode 1 The twelve contestants arrived in Hell's Kitchen and celebrated with a champagne glass and getting to know each other. After some time, Maître D’ Jean-Philippe and Sous Chefs Scott and Mary-Ann greeted them, revealing that their first test began now. During the Signature Dish Challenge, Mary Ellen revealed her dish to be an endive salad with toasted almonds due to the crunchiness, and said she loved endives. She was the second contestant to have her Signature Dish judged by Ramsay. She served an endive salad with toasted walnuts, but Ramsay was shocked that the salad had nothing cooked, and deemed it boring. After the challenge, she was placed on the blue team, along with Wendy, Jessica, Andrew, Ralph, and Michael. During dinner service, Mary Ellen was on the meat station. She was very unnoticed during that service, which was incomplete because Ramsay shut down both kitchens after many tables left. The blue team won the service, but Ramsay added that her team did not win, and that they are just safe. Episode 2 The next day, at 5:55 AM, Sous Chefs Scott and Mary-Ann went in the dorms with cookware and banged them together to wake up everybody, with Dewberry originally thinking it was somebody with a gun. During the Squid Cleaning Challenge, Mary Ellen gave one of the best individual performances of her team and overall with 2 perfect squids. However, the blue team lost the challenge 5-6, and they were punished by cleaning all the squids for the next dinner service, and working with no air conditioning. The next day, Andrew, Mary Ellen and Jessica met in the kitchen to discuss Jeff’s condition, with the former talking about his moans of pain. During dinner service, she began on the appetizer station. As the blue team were working on their first order, she struggled to get the Caesar salads ready, much to Ramsay’s dismay, but she managed to get them accepted. Later, when she finally sent out acceptable Wellingtons and half of the main courses, but Andrew was trying to make himself look good in front of Scott|Sous Chef Scott by claiming he was trying to control the temperature of the oven. However, Scott|Sous Chef Scott did not buy that, and she got annoyed by that, sarcastically telling Andrew to keep talking down to her. After Jean-Philippe was physically assaulted, Ramsay shut down both kitchens, and declared the blue team winners for serving more entrées than the red team. Episode 3 Before the 5 Course Meal Challenge, Mary Ellen said goodbye to Michael as the latter was transferred to the red team. She was the final person from the blue team to have her dish judged, made the dessert course, and went up against Jimmy. She made a trio of crème brulée , it was deemed delicious by Ramsay, and she scored that round over Jimmy. However, the blue team lost the challenge after a tiebreaker at 3, and were punished by cleaning the dorms. During dinner service, Mary Ellen was on the fish station. She was unnoticed during this service, as she did not make the most mistakes. Her team lost the service after tables walked out, and Ralph was named "Best of the Worst". During deliberation, she and Andrew tried to comfort Jessica as the latter was upset by her poor performance. She was not nominated for elimination. Episode 4 Following Wendy's elimination, when they got back to the dorms, Mary Ellen comforted Jessica, who was already missing Wendy and crying about it. During the Perfect Table Challenge, Mary Ellen got annoyed by Andrew continuing to readjust the table. The blue team managed to make only one mistake, compared to the red team's four, and won the challenge. They were rewarded with a day of relaxation and spa treatment in the dorms. During the reward, she felt awesome to get a massage after a tense time. Later that night, the chefs gathered at the patio for some down time as Mary Ellen and Jessica called Jean-Philippe a character. Then, Elsie discovered a huge billboard outside the dorms showing Ramsay's face and the title of the show. She made everybody else look at it, all laughing when they saw it saying they could not believe it. The next day during prep, Sous Chef Scott was amazed on how well she got her station set up, and she felt very good about the blue team’s situation compared to the red team. During dinner service, Mary Ellen was on the appetizer station. She got her team to a great start with her first orders of appetizers. However, three of her risottos were sent back because they were bland and mushy, and Ramsay refused to send out any more food until she sent out the refires. However, she forgot the tuna for an order as she did not hear it earlier, and when she revealed it could take two minutes to cook a fresh tuna, a frustrated Ramsay decided to send the entire table to her, making her mad to the point of punching him. The blue team lost the service as the red team succeeded to serve all their tables before them, but while Andrew blamed her for being a disaster, she felt he had big problems no matter the night. Jessica was named "Best of the Worst". Back at the dorms, she was seen talking with Jessica. Mary Ellen was Jessica's second nominee for elimination, with Andrew being the first, the former secretly hoping the latter would get kicked off, without success. During her plea, she felt she did good on appetizers until she slowed the kitchen down, with Ramsay reminding her that they had to stop the kitchen due to the risotto returns, which he deemed disgusting. In the end, she was eliminated because of her inconsistency during four services, and the fact that she sunk the kitchen for her team. During her exit interview, she believed Ramsay made the wrong decision in sending her home, and that Andrew was the weak link in the blue team, before predicting that the latter would be joining her very soon. Ramsay's comment: "Mary Ellen has left Hell's Kitchen because of her inconsistency. What the rest of the team should understand, is that it is very crucial to get better and more consistent. That didn't happen with Mary Ellen." Nomination history Trivia *She was the first contestant to get eliminated as the second nominee for elimination. *Some people believe that Andrew should have been eliminated over her. *She did not come back for the last dinner service of the season as supposed to, so Dewberry took her place. *After her appearance on the show, she married in 2013 and returned to her previous career in hospitality. Quotes *"I love endives." *(To Andrew) "No. Continue talking trash about me. I like it." *(After being eliminated) "I think that Chef Ramsay's decision was the wrong decision. I don't believe I was the weak link on the team tonight I think as shown in the past it was Andrew that was the weak link. I think that Andrew will be joining me shortly." Category:Chef Category:Season 1 Category:Bay Staters Category:8th Place